Why Did Leading Solar Panel Maker Solyndra Fail?

[PamW]

1. and "VERY POOR" design.

When the Solyndra application for financial aid was submitted to DOE, the design of the Solyndra system was evaluated by DOE scientists who concluded that it was a "very poor design".

The Solyndra design wrapped thin-film solar cells around cylindrical bars. The bars in turn were assembled into panels like the bars on a jail cell except with much closer spaced bars. This is NOT a very good design.

Think about if you were designing a solar farm, and how you would place your heliostats with the solar panels. You would line them up to follow the sun. If they were not movable, you would place them facing south in the northern hemisphere; because that is the primary direction of the sun.

Would you ever arrange your fixed heliostats in a circle; such that many were facing north, and east and west; in addition to those facing south? NO - that would be a TERRIBLE arrangement for solar panels. Why have solar panels facing north in the northern hemisphere?

Well that's what the Solyndra design did. With its circular design, at any given moment, most of its solar cell area was facing any way EXCEPT at the Sun. DOE scientists identified this extremely poor design aspect of the Solyndra design and reccomended to DOE NOT to fund Solyndra.

However, Solyndra hired a law firm that employed the wife of a very high ranking DOE official who has now resigned. Solyndra got their money in spite of the warning that the DOE's scientists sounded. The rest is history.

PamW